The rest had been fancy footwork — now he was aiming for the knock-out punch.

After a day and a half of combative cross-examination at the cop corruption trial, with his disdain for former pot dealer Christopher Quigley oozing with his every question, defence lawyer John Rosen moved in for the kill.

Rather than being beaten by dirty cops, he said in full sneer, Quigley had actually brought most of his wounds on himself by going “berserk” on police who had no choice but to restrain him.

“That is the biggest lie on the planet earth,” the angry ex-drug dealer shot back.

Quigley has testified that several members of the once-illustrious Team 3 of the Toronto Police Central Field Command drug squad beat him to a bloody pulp in 1998 because he wouldn’t tell them where they could find his money. And he’s fingered Rosen’s client, retired Det. John Schertzer, as the “Boss” of the pack who got the violence rolling by hitting him in the face.

Schertzer, 54, Ned Maodus, 48, Steve Correia, 44, Joseph Miched, 53, and Raymond Pollard, 47, have pleaded not guilty to a myriad of charges that include beating suspects, stealing their dope and cash and lying under oath.

“I wasn’t assaulted, I was tortured,” insisted Quigley, 46.

“Look at the pictures, sir,” he continued, his voice rising. “When Ned Maodus punched me in the face, my head hit a brick wall in the room...Have you even had your head hit a brick wall?”

But if these vicious police beatings really happened, Rosen demanded, why didn’t he tell them what they wanted to know so the alleged abuse would stop?

The ex-drug dealer admitted not wanting Schertzer to find his cash hidden in his mom’s safety deposit box. But he smirked at Rosen’s assertion that the cops were just dutifully trying to return the proceeds of crime. Instead, Quigley claimed, their real interest was in pocketing his money.

He contends $31,000 was missing after the squad returned the cash they’d seized during their investigation.

“They had their own little side gig going,” he said with a smile. “They were more concerned with the money, not the drugs, sir.”

After nine hours in custody, court heard Quigley was taken by ambulance from 53 Division to Sunnybrook on May 1, 1998 where a CAT scan identified an injury to his spine and a deep gash on his forehead was stitched.

But Rosen spun a much different version of what caused Quigley’s many wounds.

“The reason you have that cut,” he said, “is because you went berserk in that room when you found out they had your money in the safety deposit box and you fought a guy as big as you and he had to restrain you and in the course of that you got injured.”

Quigley eventually faced five charges, including assaulting a police officer. In return for signing an agreement not to sue police, he pleaded guilty to simple marijuana possession.

Rosen said the graphic photos Quigley took of his injuries later that day show no bruising on his legs, shoulders, neck or chest. “They knew where to hit me,” he said, his anger rising.

“Well, let’s see what the records show,” the lawyer snapped.

Rosen said Quigley’s Sunnybrook chart showed no internal injuries and no mention of a puncture to his arm. “That is a self inflicted wound,” the lawyer charged.

“That is an outrageous statement,” countered Quigley. “Are you debating the fact that I was attacked and beaten in that room? Because you’re so far afield. You’re in another planet now, sir. I’m sorry. The doctor will obviously testify to all of these injuries. Why was the ambulance called, I wonder?”

They had been sparring evenly all day, but now the pugilist lawyer had a deadly gleam in his eye.

“The independent evidence indicates that while you did have a cut to the bridge of your nose and another up over your eyebrow, and you did have some bruising, that it was just as consistent with being forcefully arrested because you were resisting as it is for any other kind of altercation,” Rosen charged.

Quigley looked as if he just might explode. “That’s an absolute lie,” he retorted.

Five years after Const. Adam Lourenco was accused of punching and pulling a gun on a black teen in the “Neptune Four” case, his misconduct hearing before a Toronto Police tribunal has yet to begin — with the latest delay coming as his lawyers try to remove the adjudicator for an “apprehension of bias.”